"The Runaway Bride" is a special episode of the long-running British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. It was produced as the Doctor Who Christmas special for 2006, broadcast on 25 December, and aired between the second and third series of the relaunched show. In the episode, set in London, the alien Racnoss Empress (Sarah Parish) and the human resources head Lance (Don Gilet) attempt to use Lance's fiancée, the secretary Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), as a "key" to awaken the Racnoss children hibernating at the centre of the Earth by gradually and secretly poisoning Donna with an alien particle the Racnoss use as an energy source. Plot The Tenth Doctor is shocked when Donna Noble, in a wedding dress, appears within the TARDIS while in flight. The Doctor returns Donna to her wedding. At the reception, the Doctor determines that Donna must have absorbed a great deal of huon particles that drew her to the TARDIS. The reception is attacked by robots dressed as Santa Claus. The Doctor uses the sound system to destroy the Santas, and discovers something is controlling them remotely from space. Learning that Donna and her fiancé Lance work for a security firm owned by the Torchwood Institute, the Doctor asks Lance to take them there. Underneath the building, the Doctor finds a long tunnel under the Thames Barrier, and a secret laboratory producing huon particles, along with a pit that leads to the centre of the Earth. Their presence brings forth the spider-like Empress of the Racnoss, a race that was born hungry and ate entire worlds. The Empress, who had been in hibernation at the edge of the universe, awoke and took over the business after Torchwood was destroyed. Lance reveals he was working for the Empress and purposely fed huon particles to Donna to help free the Empress' children. Donna and the Doctor escape. The Empress uses Lance as a substitute, force-feeding him huon particles and then throwing him into the pit. The Doctor takes Donna to his TARDIS and travels back billions of years to discover that an inert Racnoss ship became the core of the Earth as the planet formed around it; the Empress is now trying to wake her children aboard that ship with the huon particles. The Doctor and Donna return to the present as other Racnoss start emerging from the